Agriculture

The Challenge

Sub-Saharan African agriculture could, and should, be thriving. According to the World Bank, the region has the right conditions to feed itself: enough fertile farmland, enough water and enough favourable climates. According to the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), the Africa Progress Panel and others, Africa has the potential not only to feed itself, but also to become a major food supplier for the rest of the world.

Yet Africa is far from realising this potential. For too long, Africa’s agriculture sector was neglected. African governments failed over many decades to invest adequately in the agriculture sector and to create a policy and regulatory environment in which smallholder farmers could flourish. Compared to a sharp rise in domestic spending in Asia, public spending on agriculture in Africa stayed stagnant and low throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Meanwhile, donor assistance to agriculture was slashed 72% between 1988 and 2003.

As a result, Africa’s cereal crop yields today are nearly as low as they were several decades ago, and just a fraction of those in Latin America and South Asia. Today, Africa is a net food buyer, looking outside the continent to feed its growing and increasingly urban population. It faces challenges such as poor infrastructure, expensive fertiliser, poor access to extension and financial services, unreliable and unpredictable markets, low use of technology, and limited land security. As a result, Africa’s smallholder farmers have been left unable to produce enough food to feed their families, or sell surplus to markets to generate income.

The Opportunity

Unlocking Africa’s agriculture potential would also unlock its development. Farming is Africa’s main livelihood: more than two-thirds of Africans depend on agriculture for their incomes. Investing in agriculture is one of the best ways to reduce poverty in Africa. According to World Bank analysis, growth in the agriculture sector is at least 2 times as effective at reducing poverty as growth in other sectors and recent research from 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa found that growth in agriculture was 11 times as effective as growth in mining, utilities and services.

Earnings from agriculture make up around 30% of GDP (nearly 45% if agribusiness is included) across the continent and more than two-thirds of Africans depend on farming for their incomes. When connected to markets, smallholder farmers can generate an income and create a ‘multiplier effect’ – sending their children to school and stimulating the economy in order to help lift their community out of poverty for the long term. Crucially, if women farmers received equal investment, productivity in Africa could rise by more than 22%, meaning more produce for markets, more income for women and more food for children.

African leaders, donors, and the private sector need to invest in African agriculture, and African leaders in particular need to adopt sound agricultural and rural development policies to realize the sector’s potential. The obstacles to African agriculture growth are well understood. They include poor infrastructure, limited fertiliser use, lack of access to extension services and markets, weak utilisation of technology and inputs, and poor land security.

We are at a critical moment for African agriculture. Ten years have passed since African governments signed historic commitments to improve the sector, and now both African governments and donors have recently renewed these commitments at the African Union (AU) Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Now countries must transform those promises into concrete financing and policy reforms, particularly through improving their CAADP plans.

Progress over the past decade is undeniable. Where political will, domestic investment, increased aid and effective plans have been combined, we see impressive results demonstrating the poverty-reducing potential of agriculture. Countries such as Ghana, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso have experienced rapid agricultural growth; in some cases outpacing growth in other sectors. Yet many other countries are lagging in commitment, resources and results.

Now that African leaders have renewed their pledges to revitalise agriculture, and during the final run-up to the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) deadline, momentum is building to turn continent-wide political focus into results on the ground for smallholder farmers and their communities. Leaders must harness this opportunity to truly transform African agriculture and deliver on its poverty-reducing potential.

Quick Facts

805 million

people around the world are hungry today; down 100 million over the last decade and 209 million lower than in 1990.

x 2

effectiveness of growth in agriculture at reducing poverty compared to growth in other sectors.

Two-thirds

of people in sub-Saharan Africa are employed in agriculture.

11x

effectiveness of growth in agriculture at reducing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa than in mining, utilities and services sectors.